Frankly I didn’t know he had it in him, and I also wonder if the flowering is foreshadowing his death, you know how some plants do that “ta-da” thing and then just go to seed?

Carl on a dewy morn…

Oh Natalie, you ARE the Black Swan , you ARE!

Film maker Darren Aronofsky has created a phycho-thriller wrapped in tulle, blood  and feathers. Black Swan is an ultra melodramatic, urban-gothic creep-fest full of pink ribbons and repressed sexuality. Natalie Portman is the victim/actor of the piece, whose role as the prima ballerina in Swan Lake starts to affect her fragile mind. LOVE IT!

I have officially contracted Brooch Mania! Everywhere I look there are things just WAITING to be made into brooches. Take the necklace I broke last week; it’ beautiful, plastic, egg-shaped links just happen to make the perfect frame for a brooch. Backed with some awesome, faux-vintage scraps of fabric, these brooches are my latest and greatest effort so far.

Give me a bosom and I’ll give you a brooch!

Pin a brooch to your polar fleece jumper, flannelette shirt or P.J’s and witness the transformative powers of the well-placed accessory. The brooch adds polish, panache and decisiveness to the scattered, illogical or challenging outfit. The brooch makes everything make sense.

The above are the product of a weekend crafternoon and I’m pleased as punch with the results. It was all made super-duper easy with a DIY button making kit and some fab fabrics.

Check out more of my stitchery on BurdaStyle

My sketches from the Australian Made exhibition

Happy times for me this week in the shapely form of Australian made, the new fashion exhibition at the Ian Potter Center, Melbourne.  I am  the original, un-killable fashion victim and anything that promises to be pretty, frilly, flounced or in any way fabulous has me tripping over my mock Manolo’s to get first look.  I must admit it all seems so long ago, now that I’m at home sick with my tracksuit pants on backwards and am zipped into stained yellow polar fleece, but I’ll try to remember the good times…

A glass case of glittering gowns begins the exhibition that takes us back to the beginnings of Aussie fashion frockery. They are the most precious and delicate dresses, made of the finest lace and silk, a fairy floss of fabric. They are the gowns with beads clinging to their fluted hems, pearls buttoning their fronts and sequins swirling over their skirts.

The first frock of the line-up was a white and lavender concoction from 1855. With its high neck, sloping shoulders and domed skirt it looked a physical impossibility. The bust was high, like a deep breath drawn and held, and the shoulders so drooping as to look dislocated; the waist was horribly small and the sleeves ballooned out to the wrist. A few frocks later and the silhouette is dramatically different, but just as ergonomically challenging. These are the gowns of the 1900’s –think Picnic at Hanging Rock or Anne of Green Gables – all sway backs and pigeon chests. These are the ones I love the most though, the ones made of fine white silks and cottons gathered, shirred, pintucked and embroidered in obsessive detail.

I took a turn past the riding habits and Princess Leia-style wedding gown to join the party with the cocktail frocks. I just love the nipped waists and candy colours of the 50’s and there were some delightful cocktail offerings from the likes of designer Hal Ludlow. One combo that really made me stop and think though, was an insane bolero/dress combo by Magg that begged explanation. Basically, a knee-length shift dress was covered in clumps of curled and tangled strings of salmon coloured silk; across the bust was an asymmetric scattering of pearls and diamantes. Hanging alongside it like guilty accomplice was the similarly shaggy bolero; a real double whammy.

To top the exhibition off there was a case filled to bursting with additional fripperies; a handbag like a golden shield with matching helmet hat, platforms studded all over with diamantes and gorgeous lavender gloves. There was a 1930’s jade green cloche that sat so low and close over the head I could just imagine the open-air automobile rides it had weathered. Opposite that was a resolutely ridiculous red hat made of ostrich feather from the 1950’s that must have alarmed many in its day. God I love fashion!

So I meditated this morning in a desperate bid to make peace with the film I saw yesterday. Kosmos, a Turkish/Bulgarian “film” was playing as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, and I was fool enough to go and see it.

Kosmos is set in a bleak, white-on-white, snow-covered town somewhere horrible. It’s peopled by wizened men who smoke and cough and women who wear slip-on shoes (in the SNOW!) . Into this dramatic milieu lands a  mysterious stranger who variously squawks and recites religious non-sequiturs into people’s faces. Truely – he SQUAWKS in people’s faces. This squawking can have a medicinal effect; sometimes curing other characters illnessness, but not always – and never so that you’d care. Anyway, the stranger is barely in frame before he’s running dramatically out of it again and huddling somewhere, squawking at someone or crying. Sometimes he stares at statues as well.

What upsets me most is that the trailer makes this film seem like something actually happened, and that what happened is interesting. Not the case.

I found some beautiful books at the op-shop a while ago – their wonderfully decorated hardcovers were hidden benieth rotten paper covers. I’ve torn out the pages inside (it was all incredibly boring in there I promise you!) and I am gradually filling it again with little pictures and collages to make an artists book!